The first stage of preparation of seeds for oil extraction was removing the outer layers to expose the
kernel. The seeds were cracked open in order to obtain kernels for further processing. The seed cracking
process used two methods: stompers and mallets. For the stomper, a large number of seeds were placed
on the ground and worked until a number had been cracked and then the kernels and the waste husk were removed. For the mallet, operators placed a handful of seeds on the table surface and cracked them
individually, before removing the kernels and the waste husk as shown in Fig. 1.